53,339 research outputs found
Distributed generation on rural electricity networks - a lines company perspective : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering in Energy Management at Massey University
CD held with Reference copyA number of electricity assets used in rural New Zealand yield a very low return on investment. According to the provisions of the Electricity Act 1992, after 01 April 2013, lines companies may terminate supply to any customer to whom they cannot provide electricity lines services profitably. This research was undertaken to assist the policy makers, lines companies, rural investors on the viability of distributed generation in a rural setting from the point of view of the lines company and the investor as well as to provide recommendations to the problem areas. A dynamic distributed generation model was developed to simulate critical distributed generation scenarios relevant to New Zealand, such as diverse metering arrangements, time dependent electricity prices, peak shaving by load control, peak lopping by dispatchable distributed generation and state subsides, which are not addressed in commercial software. Data required to run the model was collected from a small rural North Island sheep and beef farming community situated at the end of a 26km long radial distribution feeder. Additional operational data were also collected from the community on distributed resources such as solar hot water systems. A number of optimum distributed generation combinations involving a range of technologies under different metering arrangements and price signals were identified for the small and the medium investor. The effect of influencing factors, such as state initiatives and technological growth, on the investor and the lines companies were discussed. Recommendations for future implementation in order to integrate distributed generation on to rural networks were also given. Several key research areas were identified and discussed including low cost micro hydro, wind resource assessment, diversification of the use of the induction generators, voltage flicker and dynamic distributed generation techno-economic forecasting tools
Heater Control for Thermionic Power Generation
The purpose of this report is to detail the conceptualization, analysis, budget, manufacturing, and assembly the heater for a thermionic energy converter for portable energy generation. This proof of concept will be created to provide a full thermionic energy converter with a reliable and satisfactory heater than can be used in future systems. The report highlights the feasibility and realities in the design and fabrication of the system
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An Assessment of PIER Electric Grid Research 2003-2014 White Paper
This white paper describes the circumstances in California around the turn of the 21st century that led the California Energy Commission (CEC) to direct additional Public Interest Energy Research funds to address critical electric grid issues, especially those arising from integrating high penetrations of variable renewable generation with the electric grid. It contains an assessment of the beneficial science and technology advances of the resultant portfolio of electric grid research projects administered under the direction of the CEC by a competitively selected contractor, the University of California’s California Institute for Energy and the Environment, from 2003-2014
Distributed photovoltaic systems: Utility interface issues and their present status
Major technical issues involving the integration of distributed photovoltaics (PV) into electric utility systems are defined and their impacts are described quantitatively. An extensive literature search, interviews, and analysis yielded information about the work in progress and highlighted problem areas in which additional work and research are needed. The findings from the literature search were used to determine whether satisfactory solutions to the problems exist or whether satisfactory approaches to a solution are underway. It was discovered that very few standards, specifications, or guidelines currently exist that will aid industry in integrating PV into the utility system. Specific areas of concern identified are: (1) protection, (2) stability, (3) system unbalance, (4) voltage regulation and reactive power requirements, (5) harmonics, (6) utility operations, (7) safety, (8) metering, and (9) distribution system planning and design
Breaking Instance-Independent Symmetries In Exact Graph Coloring
Code optimization and high level synthesis can be posed as constraint
satisfaction and optimization problems, such as graph coloring used in register
allocation. Graph coloring is also used to model more traditional CSPs relevant
to AI, such as planning, time-tabling and scheduling. Provably optimal
solutions may be desirable for commercial and defense applications.
Additionally, for applications such as register allocation and code
optimization, naturally-occurring instances of graph coloring are often small
and can be solved optimally. A recent wave of improvements in algorithms for
Boolean satisfiability (SAT) and 0-1 Integer Linear Programming (ILP) suggests
generic problem-reduction methods, rather than problem-specific heuristics,
because (1) heuristics may be upset by new constraints, (2) heuristics tend to
ignore structure, and (3) many relevant problems are provably inapproximable.
Problem reductions often lead to highly symmetric SAT instances, and
symmetries are known to slow down SAT solvers. In this work, we compare several
avenues for symmetry breaking, in particular when certain kinds of symmetry are
present in all generated instances. Our focus on reducing CSPs to SAT allows us
to leverage recent dramatic improvement in SAT solvers and automatically
benefit from future progress. We can use a variety of black-box SAT solvers
without modifying their source code because our symmetry-breaking techniques
are static, i.e., we detect symmetries and add symmetry breaking predicates
(SBPs) during pre-processing.
An important result of our work is that among the types of
instance-independent SBPs we studied and their combinations, the simplest and
least complete constructions are the most effective. Our experiments also
clearly indicate that instance-independent symmetries should mostly be
processed together with instance-specific symmetries rather than at the
specification level, contrary to what has been suggested in the literature
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